^{for Can}

I love the slow, tender
hooved gallop behind my left
nipple & how it turns me
into less a prisoner; prisoner
once, now a man less burdened 
by time. I love the rust & callous, the half
of it that makes me weep.
I love my lashes like scimitars,
the scar above my left eye
shaped by a fallen tree branch
& staring too long at the sun. I love
how g-d outlasts belief. I love 
the tooth chipped sliding along
the stone of a mango; 
the brokenness my body coupling 
with hers won’t fashion. I love 
the ridge that parts my bald head.
The days of whisky pickling
my liver. I love eleven rings
on my fingers. The two moons
on each fingernail. I love
all my eclipses. How my history 
begs for song from crackheads 
& soothsayers. I love this prayer,
this sin-eater or ghost or madman
humming to my soul. I love discursive 
& juxtaposition & the alchemy turning 
words into the only parachutes 
I long for. This body long been 
a troubled river. I love the storm. 
The weary. The thousand wild
cicadas. I love every invention,
every windmill turned monster.
I love how I know the deluge; 
how most likely I shall see it coming; 
or if, the empty of its absence. I love 
these two livers. This sac of humor,
this broken vinyl scratched
& spinning, & that one paladin
who refuses to let me be lonely.

^{i.m. Paula Merwin}

All this time, I felt like I had to describe 
the things I did, and what was done to me,
how I had to wander a strange world for years, 
needing to be busy, sleeping in strange beds, 
searching through cities for chapels to weep in, 
learning the stitches that keep a ripped heart 
together for a while, when what I really need 
to say is that it rained all night and morning, 
and the drops were a percussion on the trees,
and after the sun rose, I saw an insect land on the railing 
and take shelter, and a bird drank from a leaf. 
Wild pigs exploded from the bushes where they’d hid,
and the sage in the bowl smelt of memory and musk.
A toad sat—still as any god—on the wet stone.